STRATEGIC GROWTH

Fostering growth in both current and
emerging strategic research areas is an important element in the
college's strategic plan. For example, the Engine Research Center, established by the Army Research Office
in 1986 and renewed in 1992, continues to grow as a leader in the
field. In the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, ergonomics
research is now a rapidly expanding area which interests a wide
segment of both business and industry.

ERGONOMICS AT WORK

By measuring the ergonomic characteristics of a computer workstation,
industrial engineers determine factors that affect an employee's
health and a company's productivity. Shown here, Industrial and Systems Engineering Associate Professor Pascale Carayon measures the
distance from a computer screen to the eyes of graduate student Marla
Haims (45K JPG).

The women are involved in a workplace ergonomic study for the
Wisconsin Department of Transportation. As part of their ongoing
project, they conduct ergonomic evaluations and assess work conditions
such as keyboard height, screen angles and chair comfort levels. Other
data-collection methods include interviewing employees, ergonomic
surveys and videotaping. Video cameras help evaluate factors such as
posture and hand positions. A large part of their research, says
Carayon, is evaluating the effectiveness of participatory ergonomic
interventions over time.

SUPERCOMPUTER SIMULATION

With the capacity to produce 1.6 billion calculations per second, the
new Cray vector/parallel supercomputer in the college's Engine Research Center (ERC) will help in
designing higher-power, cleaner-burning, more fuel-efficient
engines. The $1.3 million supercomputer, installed in May, accurately
simulates engine processes such as combustion, providing answers about
basic principles of engine performance. This will greatly aid the ERC
in its role as an Army Center of Excellence for Advanced Propulsion.

To accommodate the expansion of
strategic research programs, the college is now finalizing a plan to
reorganize space while optimizing for interdisciplinary activity. The
"Corridor Plan" organizes the campus into six strategic corridor
areas:

Chemical/Biotechnology Corridor

Manufacturing/Mechanical Corridor

Informational Corridor

Electrical/Electronics Corridor

Infrastructure/Environmental Corridor

Engineering Sciences/Materials Corridor

Important to implementing the Corridor Plan is construction of the
140,000 squarefoot Engineering Centers Building.

ENGINEERING CENTERS BUILDING

The college's space deficit limits growth in several key research
areas including microelectronics, manufacturing and production. The
Engineering Centers Building (ECB), an important component of the
Vision 2000 fund raising campaign, will create needed space in a way
that enables faculty, graduate students and undergraduates to interact
with each other for maximum results in both research and education.

The ECB will house strategic research and technology programs in the
areas of manufacturing and production, with special emphasis on
engineering centers. It will also include space devoted to
undergraduate student activities.

CONTINUING MICROMACHINE ADVANCES

This (not shown) microdynamometer represents the latest generation of
micro devices produced by Professor Henry Guckel of the college's Wisconsin Center for Applied Microelectronics (WCAM). Produced at the university's Synchrotron Radiation Center, it
is one of the first complete microsystems in a single package having
both a drive and a sense mechanism. At the top is the drive gear, 1mm
in diameter and 150 microns thick, which drives into a center idling
gear of 250 micron diameter. (A human hair is 75 microns in diameter.)
At the bottom is the breaking gear which can be used to apply a load
via a current-controlled magnetic field to measure the torque on the
rotor, or as a feedback system to determine how much force the motor
supplies.

This motor is magnetic, not electrostatic as are most micromotors. It
requires only 1 milliwatt of power to keep the three gears
spinning--significantly lower than other magnetic
micromotors. (Externally wound coils power the motor, as opposed to
integrated coils, thus enabling the low power motor requirement.) This
motor can reach 8,000 rpm; other WCAM versions have achieved nearly
150,000 rpm. The microdynamometer has many potential uses in
manufacturing processes and products as a sensor of external magnetic
fields, pressure or gas flow.